1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for an electric vehicle travelling from a starting point to a destination, a navigation system for an electric vehicle, a method for charging an electric energy storage device of an electric vehicle, and a charger for charging an electrical energy storage device of an electric vehicle.
2. Description of the Conventional Art
Current vehicle navigation systems essentially provide route guidance to the user-defined destination. Some effort has been done to provide additional weather-related information, for example the weather forecast along the route and at the time of arrival, for informational and convenience reasons to the driver. Conventional combustion engines of vehicles are not significantly impacted in their performance or fuel range by weather conditions. On the other hand, the performance of electric vehicles is greatly influenced by differences in temperature, wind resistance or rain. Furthermore, the behaviour of battery packs in the electric vehicles can be extremely temperature-dependent when being charged and discharged. In some cases, the vehicle's battery management system may allow charging and/or discharging of the batteries only within a certain temperature range as otherwise the chemistry of the cells may be degraded and the batteries may start losing their capacity. In cases where the temperature of the cells reaches extremely hot or cold temperatures, this may cause damage to the cells and may lead to degradation in lifetime or even dangerous thermal runaway situations of the batteries.